


(On the) Outside Looking In

by stareyednight



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Dark of the Moon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-26
Updated: 2012-09-26
Packaged: 2017-11-15 02:15:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/522061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stareyednight/pseuds/stareyednight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mikaela watches the events of <i>Dark of the Moon</i> live via CNN. Big giant spoilers for <i>Dark of the Moon</i> Like, the last half of the movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(On the) Outside Looking In

Mikaela's puttering around the apartment, making a second cup of coffee. Brenton left in a rush this morning and she feels a bit lonely, so she turns on the tv in the living room, and CNN's still on from yesterday. She leaves it on it on for the noise and in the hope that something will stick. Even after a few years of living in New York, away from home and everyone she grew up around, Mikaela still feels like she's not quite smart enough to be living in Brenton's world, with his lawyer co-workers and their investment banker partners. They don't care if she can hotwire a car in thirty seconds, or replace a carburetor, or help save the world from hostile alien robots. Brenton never makes her feel that way, but she thinks she might always feel a little like she doesn't quite belong.

She's got the day off from work and nothing too do but a bit of laundry and maybe go for a run. Coffee in hand, she wanders into the bedroom but what she hears on tv makes her come right back out.

“... looks like a war zone. These exclusive videos coming out of Chicago have been giving us our only glimpses of Decepticon activity against the city and the people since it began last night.”

Mikaela stops as the shaky video shows Decepticons blasting people left, right and centre. A bus goes up in a shower of sparks and she sits on the coffee table, staring. A black and white police car transforms and mows down the people hiding behind it. It's as if her nightmares have come to life as she watches Barricade stomp through the streets. It's also unreal, in a way. She's seen him up close, knows how he sounds and the feeling of the street trembling as he stomps and now he's on her tv, striding through Chicago.

Her coffee's forgotten as she watches. CNN cuts back to a pale and drawn anchor, who's trying to make comment and is talking about some experts coming up. Mikaela wants to snort. Experts, like who? Simmons? Lennox? Sam?

Sam.

It hits her and Mikaela is reaching for the remote, cycling through the channels to find out if MSNBC or Fox has anything. Are people going in, or just running out? Is NEST involved? Where is Sam?

New photos and video are popping up every once in a while and Mikaela can't stop watching. But, now she's looking for Sam or Bumblebee or Optimus in every shot. She doesn't even realise she's got her phone in her hand, but she dials anyway, and a breakup doesn't mean a whole lot right now.

She gets his voicemail. “Sam, it's me. I saw what's happening, please just let me know that you're not going in there.” She pauses and realises how stupid that is. “Or, just, let me know that you get out okay.” She hangs up and thinks about calling Judy, but can't bring herself to. Instead, she keeps watching.

There's nothing new. The same video, the same words over and over. There's no way to get the video with Decepticons shooting down everything that flies anywhere near the city centre. Mikaela flips between the news channels, hoping for any little bit of something new. She's vaguely aware she's chewing on her lower lip, tasting the tang of blood in her mouth as they start estimating the death toll so far. It's worse than anything the Decepticons have done, and while she'd known they were awful, horrible creatures, she'd never thought it would go this far. She'd thought the Autobots would be able to stop this. Optimus and Ironhide and Bumblebee should have had this. Where were they?

Her blood freezes as CNN answers her question for her. They show the Autobots being herded onto a spaceship, and she watches the explosion with both hands over her mouth. Only yesterday, they say. Demands made by Sentinel Prime (who?) and the Autobots being forced to leave. She'd bet everything that Megatron's behind that, no matter who the mouthpiece is.

She tries to make herself move on, but she can't get past the Autobots being gone. She's starts crying as the tv shows photos of the Autobots leaving and she can see Bumblebee, and Sam with him. Optimus standing tall, with Rachet behind him. Her memory starts spitting out little events, like the time Optimus lifted her up to Sam's window, and when Bumblebee sulked in the garage for a summer. The time Rachet sat her down to ask about human reproduction and she wasn't sure who was more embarrassed. Ironhide and his cannons and Wheelie pissing him off. She feels like she's lost half her family at once. It's worse than losing them all in the break-up, because there was always the faint and foggy possibility that she'd see them again. Now... now they're gone.

It gets further into the day and she grabs a box of crackers blindly from the kitchen and stays glued to the tv. Someone still fleeing shoots a video and titles it “Crazy Fuckers going IN to Chicago”. When CNN shows it, she can just make out Sam getting out of the car with what looks like Epps and she can't decide if she wants to cry or be relieved. She settles for both.

More of nothing for hours until Anderson Cooper reports, from five miles out of Chicago, that the Decepticons have been defeated. Mikaela holds her breath as the new footage shows the Autobots striding out of the wreckage. There's Sam, with his arm around a girl, tall and leggy and both of them filthy. Mikaela lets out the breath and hopes that girl has a good therapist. And decent shampoo. Nothing's worse than motor oil in your follicles. She faintly realises the relief is making her punchy, but decides not to care.

Sam's got all his limbs and doesn't look any worse than Egypt or Mission City, even though Optimus seems to be missing an arm. Lennox is there with a handful of soldiers and Mikaela thinks she recognises about half of them. It makes her want to call Sarah, desperate to connect with someone who knows how she's feeling, but she doesn't. Bumblebee and Rachet are there, but she doesn't see Ironhide and her heart hurts.

She watches the wrap up, the praise for “Chicago's Saviours” and an interview with Simmons. The sun starts to go down and she realises she's sitting in the dark, on her coffee table, with a cold cup of coffee and a box of crackers still beside her.

She gets up and turns the lights on, tidies up. Finally gets out of her pyjamas and starts making dinner. She turns the tv off. Her cell beeps with a message as she's dicing vegetables for a stirfry.

_Got out safe. Thanks. Bee says hi._

She smiles sadly and puts it down. There's a part of her that misses him and wishes she was there to celebrate saving the world, again. But, there's the other part that's already been on an emotional roller coaster just from watching it and she's glad she doesn't have to worry like that anymore. She's glad Brenton is only in danger from papercuts and too much coffee and that his scariest experience was the bar exam and the time he got lost in the woods overnight.

Brenton gets home and sweeps her up into his arms, holding her tight. She wraps her arms around him and hugs him just as hard. When he lets her go, she sets dinner on the kitchen table and Brenton grabs two bottles of beer.

“Hey,” he says, as they sit down. “I swore I saw your ex on CNN today. In Chicago.”

Mikaela takes a swallow of her beer and sets the bottle down, putting her hand over his. “Babe, there's something I need to tell you about.”


End file.
